Lillian and Marie

There's few better blessings than a long-term friendship.  From at least 1916, Lillian Christensen and Marie Morse were friends, with the Morse family living on the next block over on Beach street.  The Morses eventually moved from Huron, but the families still got together.  When Lillian passed away, Marie's name and address were in her address book, though they probably did not get together in person frequently if at all.

Below, Lillian and Marie through the years - top, about 1916; middle, 1927.

A Silent Testament to a Story Nearly Forgotten

The photo to the left is of my grandparents, Bill and Lillian Knutz, taken sometime prior to 1957, the year their farm home burned to the ground.  I love the picture, but one of the things I enjoy just as much is looking around at the background of these old photos.  These things tell the story of their lives, day to day.  I see the radio, where Grandma first discovered soap operas.  I see a starfish hanging on the wall, most likely something Lillian's father in California sent her (he liked to spend time swimming in the ocean and collecting shells).  But what really caught my interest was the two wooden leaf-shaped shelves.   I know my mother made these in fifth grade at age 12, as my grandmother told me, and also documented with a handwritten note taped to the back.


Taking a closer look at one of the shelves tells the real story.  Notice the burned wood along the upper edges of the shelf.  This was from the fire that consumed their home and most everything in it, in May of 1957.  Oh, the stories this little shelf could tell!  As the house was burning, the family ran in and out trying to salvage as many of their possessions as possible, until the fire department arrived on the scene and took over.  The firemen pushed grandma's piano out of the smoky house, which meant a lot to them - when they weren't busy farming, they had a dance band to bring in a few more dollars.  A fireman was able to grab one of the little leaf shelves off the wall, but not the other.  Much of the rest of their things, including clothes, housewares and furniture, were destroyed.  The starfish was destroyed.  The radio was destroyed. But this little leaf shelf lives on.

It now hangs on our wall, with a small picture of Jesus sitting on it, just as it did in my grandparents' house in town.  But the blackened edges of the wood testify to a story long, long ago and mostly forgotten.

Twenty-Four Years

It was 24 years ago today that my grandmother passed away.

I don't spend much time thinking about that day anymore, but I love the memories she left with me. She was no ordinary grandma.

She traumatized me with Dippity-do, poisoned me with her Green Drops medicine, almost ruined me for wanting children with the Ugly Baby, and totally "bamboozled" us with her tall tales of dying from pimples, getting our eyes pecked out from pet birds, and the terrible, terrible things the doctor would have to do if we got constipated.

She taught me Guppy Genetics, how to feed anyone anything using meatloaf, the art of making a sewing pattern out of newspaper, and playing the piano chords of the old 1940s dance music while she played the melodies.

She was fun - we had things at her house that we didn't get at home, like treasure boxes, the Family Doghouse, homemade picture books, sea shells, and party hats and noisemakers.  And she let us play with glitter.  That never, ever happened at home.  Ever.

She had her idiosyncrasies.  She loved her grandchildren, but would lock us outside in a heartbeat when As The World Turns came on.  She "flowered-over" ex-spouses and boyfriends, no questions asked.

She kept secrets well and bent over backwards to cover peoples' faults.  She rarely had an unkind word to say about anyone, but if someone said something bad about one of us, they'd better watch it. If it wasn't true, she'd set them straight in no uncertain terms, and if it was true, she'd tell them to mind their own business, in a very polite way, of course.

Even after 24 years, it doesn't feel as though she's gone.  I feel her presence every evening when we have dinner at her table, serve something in the pink bowl, when I'm in my sewing room, watching the bird feeder and telling stories about her to my young granddaughters.  So this day, it's her living I will remember.